When Will There Be Good News?

A Novel

The third installment in Kate Atkinson's wildly beloved series of Jackson Brodie Mysteries: a complex tale of murder, coincidence, and connected lives.

" As a reader, I was charmed. As a novelist, I was staggered by Kate Atkinson's narrative wizardry." --Stephen King

On a hot summer day, Joanna Mason's family slowly wanders home along a country lane. A moment later, Joanna's life is changed forever...

On a dark night thirty years later, ex-detective Jackson Brodie finds himself on a train that is both crowded and late. Lost in his thoughts, he suddenly hears a shocking sound...

At the end of a long day, 16-year-old Reggie is looking forward to watching a little TV. Then a terrifying noise shatters her peaceful evening. Luckily, Reggie makes it a point to be prepared for an emergency...

These three lives come together in unexpected and deeply thrilling ways in the latest novel from Kate Atkinson, the critically acclaimed author who Harlan Coben calls "an absolute must-read."

Opinion

From the critics

Community Activity

Comment

Kate Atkinson has to be one of the most versatile writers working in English. Her"crime" novels are brilliant, and so is her amazing trilogy about the First and Second World Wars.
I'm not crazy about the Jackson Brodie TV series, but the books are aweson.

Hard to star this one. For me, it read like two separate books. After the killings that set up the story, everything slowed down and the story became about the small, everyday things that happen in the lives of all of the characters (and there are quite a few) over time, and I wondered if we were ever going to get back to the main event. This went on for half the book. But once we got back to the murders, and several other intertwined criminal activities, things picked up and I enjoyed the story quite a bit. It's quite an obvious division, and makes me wonder if the author enjoyed developing her characters so much that she forgot about the point of the story. OR...the point of the story was in fact the character development, in which case it was I who missed the point. Things get tied up (for the most part) at the end, but for myself, I could have done with less of what seemed like dithering at the start. Still, I will be giving this author another try.
NOTE: I should add that I 'read' this story as an audiobook, which made keeping track of the smaller characters dicey. In the final chapter or two, when the author makes sure that everyone gets an ending to their particular part of the story, it would have been handy to be able to flip back through a hard copy to remind myself who some of them were.

Atkinson’s third mystery featuring ex-cop turned PI Jackson Brodie. A little girl hides in a corn field to escape an attacker who murders the rest of her family. Thirty years later Brodie jumps on the wrong train and is almost killed. He is rescued by a young girl who involves him in a complicated search for a missing person. Atkinson brings all these plots together brilliantly and offers the reader wonderful character studies.

hania4987
Jan 16, 2014

this is the third of Jackson Brodie books. It was easier to follow all the intertwined stories because of the two anchor characters of Jackson and Louise.

Once again the puzzle pieces of this story all make a picture with a major surprise at the end that changes the whole perspective of the picture--if you've read the whole book. Amazing how Atkinson skillfully puts all the pieces in place, then pulls them all together.